Weren't We Funky Then? You betcha

"Grandpa, was there a Minneapolis sound before Prince?" "Was there? Pull up a chair, my boy..." Better yet, pull on some headphones and listen to a new album that collects some of the jams that funked up the Twin Cities forty years ago. Or make your way to Saturday's record release party to see some of those old timers strut their soul. After all, this is officially Twin Cities Funk and Soul Week.

The anticipation even seeped into that bastion of stodginess, City Hall. Here's Minneapolis City Council member Gary Schiff reading the proclamation declaring this Twin Cities Funk and Soul Week, followed by a little more of the Valdons.

While the question of how we make our state attractive for businesses to expand and move to Minnesota is a good one, there does not seem to be agreement on how to make this happen. Business contributor John Alexander has some suggestions...

Last year International Falls may have just been too casual -- and/or a little out of shape. The town took a beating in its annual tug o' war across the Rainy River with Fort Frances, Ontario. To ensure that this year is different, they're putting out a call for burly men and women to join them in the Pull For Peace on July 2nd and see to it that the Canadians get wet this year.

The Daily Mail recently lit up the Internet with a story about a University of Minnesota research project. The headline: "Does listening to rock make you racist?" The professor behind the study says the headline was misleading, but the rest of the story captured her findings pretty well: "In a nutshell, we were testing the power of music to affect how people treat others. What we found was that music genre ... has a powerful effect on people's behavior," Prof. Heather LaMarre tells pop culture site Fuse.Tv.